Science
Related: About this forumHubble Image: Magnifying the Distant Universe (big space pic)
Galaxy clusters are some of the most massive structures that can be found in the Universe large groups of galaxies bound together by gravity. This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals one of these clusters, known as MACS J0454.1-0300. Each of the bright spots seen here is a galaxy, and each is home to many millions, or even billions, of stars.
Astronomers have determined the mass of MACS J0454.1-0300 to be around 180 trillion times the mass of the sun. Clusters like this are so massive that their gravity can even change the behavior of space around them, bending the path of light as it travels through them, sometimes amplifying it and acting like a cosmic magnifying glass. Thanks to this effect, it is possible to see objects that are so far away from us that they would otherwise be too faint to be detected.
In this case, several objects appear to be dramatically elongated and are seen as sweeping arcs to the left of this image. These are galaxies located at vast distances behind the cluster their image has been amplified, but also distorted, as their light passes through MACS J0454.1-0300. This process, known as gravitational lensing, is an extremely valuable tool for astronomers as they peer at very distant objects.
This effect will be put to good use with the start of Hubble's Frontier Fields program over the next few years, which aims to explore very distant objects located behind lensing clusters, similar to MACS J0454.1-0300, to investigate how stars and galaxies formed and evolved in the early Universe.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-magnifying-the-distant-universe/index.html#.Uzhj6FzWRua
eppur_se_muova
(36,263 posts)A lens focuses light. It does not amplify it. This is from NASA ??
Wilms
(26,795 posts)I'm wondering if that's what was meant.
http://www.cfhtlens.org/public/what-gravitational-lensing
Skeeter Barnes
(994 posts)not Hubble.
eppur_se_muova
(36,263 posts)Amplification means turning a weak signal into a strong one. That doesn't happen here -- all that happens here is that the path of the light is being bent, producing an image which would not otherwise be seen, at least not in the same location.
Skeeter Barnes
(994 posts)And the Wiki for gravitational lensing states that the effect can in fact magnify the light.
oldandhappy
(6,719 posts)Thanks
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)wallpaper - for a wall (not my computer). Full size, floor to ceiling . . . or maybe, the ceiling of a room. So gorgeous.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)If I were choosing, though, this is the image I would use for that
.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/xdf.html
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)Amazing.
byronius
(7,395 posts)And of those, how many are cursed with their own special brand of teabaggerism trying to kill off the planet before anyone can make it off?
I bet we're looking at a lot of hippie-types as well.
Nice folks everywhere.
Thinkin' positive.
bleedinglib
(212 posts)As I look at the Hubble deep space pics. Using a powerful magnifying glass
there seems to be like a fabric in the deepest parts of the image?? These minute red & blue dots, are they part of the pic. or what??
Scientist say that the Universe is app. 15 billion light years across? & expanding
Could this fabric be the edge of infinity? We can all but guess as to what this is?
I remember Carl Sagan saying that if there were one civilization for every trillion stars there would be one trillion civilizations!! WOW